For the Love of God…

Don’t get me wrong, my Gig as a Mommy is pretty sweet.  But how come no one talks about the terrible threes?  I mean, everyone talks about how hard having a newborn is because of nursing, sleepless nights and raging hormones.  Everyone also talks about the tantrums associated with the terrible twos.  But hell, no one ever talks about the unbearably horrid threes.  In my opinion, threes can be the most challenging, mainly because three year olds are little hormonal teenagers trapped in a small body, waiting to snap or embarrass you at any moment.  Oh and did I mention they always think they're right? So, I have dubbed year “three” as the “For the love of God years.”

For the love of God, child-

I do not wish to run to the bathroom every time you yell, “Mom, I’m done,” only to find you standing, facing the toilet, pants on the ground chuckling “just kidding,” as you start to pee again (mostly in the toilet). I get that you just learned how to control your starting and stopping times when you urinate, but come on you can only be impressed with this for a few times before it starts to become seriously annoying. Although, on a strange level I am proud of him and his newly developed skills, but seriously buddy, some accomplishments should be kept to yourself.

For the love of God, child-

It’s not a little known fact that I don’t enjoy you sprinting across the room, lunging onto my lap and letting out a gigantic fart then running away leaving the smell of feces lingering in the air for all to enjoy.  Way to keep it classy.

For the love of God, child-

Please stop making puking noises after you take a bit of anything that I have cooked. I get that I’m no Rachel Ray, but your distasteful gestures are starting to kill my kitchen self-esteem.

For the love of God, child-

I didn't know that you wanted your peanut butter and jelly sandwich to have-bread, jelly, peanut butter, and then bread- in that order.  Oh wait, I found it out after I made the sandwich because you screamed in disgust at the top of your lungs and refused to eat it.  And for the love of God, child, flipping the sandwich upside down would, in fact, solve the problem.  Who’s right now?

For the love of God, this was just today…  

And this is what I get when I ask my child to let me take a picture of him wearing his Burger King crown....

Intervention

Well, we are a week into our intervention and things are finally starting to look up. 

Flashback to a week ago…

               I walked over to the fridge and grasped the black handle and opened the door with a slight tug.  As I opened the door, I felt a slight wave of cool air rush over me.  My eyes scanned the contents inside and came up empty so my eyes scanned again and once more. Still nothing.  My heart beat started to race and I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up.  I was in a pure panic.  Then from a distance I heard a faint sound.  With every second the sound became louder and louder.  It didn't take long for the sound to become clear, “Mom, I want pink milk.” 

               Gulp. I took a deep breath and sputtered out, “Good Morning Chase.  It appears that we are out of pink milk.”  I took a step back and waited for his reaction.  As you can imagine, Chase thought that running out of strawberry syrup wasn't up to par and frankly, irresponsible of me.  Well, of course he didn't vocalize his anger quite as eloquently as this.  But vocalize it, he did. 

               As Chase was lying on the cold kitchen floor, weeping into his beloved purple blankie, resisting any comfort from an actual human, I figured that this was his rock bottom the perfect time to cut pink milk out of his life.  Cold Turkey.  (On a side note: Chase didn't think it was helpful for me to sing a song from Daniel Tiger that goes a little something like this:  "When you feel so mad that you want to roar, take a deep breath and count to four. One. Two. Three. Four."  Actually, this seemed to anger him more. Who would have known?)

               To say the first day was pure hell is an understatement.  Chase decided that if he couldn't have pink milk to drink then he wasn't going to drink at all because water was “gross” and regular old white milk was “puke.”  (Although I agreed with his describing words, I couldn't give in and support his and pink milk’s co-dependent relationship any longer.) I felt his love for pink milk was blinding him to the joys of other healthy beverages and I knew I had to be strong for his sake and mine (After all it is a big annoyance to always have to have strawberry syrup on hand). 

               By day two, Chase did drink a sip or two of water.  But not by choice; he accidentally swallowed some water in the bathtub.  But hey, at least he wasn't getting dehydrated.  I swear on day two, he started to get the shakes when his continual requests for pink milk were denied at breakfast.   But by lunch he took a sip of “pukey” milk and didn't die.  So that was a plus.

               The next few days were a roller-coaster of emotions as he started to let go of his long relationship with pink milk and started to build one with white milk.

               We did have a close call this weekend.  Cory and I were discussing what we needed to purchase from the grocery store, when Cory asked if Chase needed more pink milk.  I immediately felt a bead of sweat form on my forehead and I whispered, “No,” hoping Chase wasn't near us, as if Chase hearing Cory’s words might trigger his cravings.  And honestly, I have been too strong during this process to start making Chase’s mouth salivate over pink milk, 6 days clean.  (Note to self:  Cory may be the biggest enabler of our son, ever!)

               As for today, day 8, it’s been okay.  Chase is two sippy cups deep into white milk and hasn't cried out for his once-loved pink colored comfort and it appears that he is over the shakes.

               Things are looking up for us and I am hopeful they will stay up.  

On another note: This was our conversation at dinner the other night:

Me: "Chase I love you and Daddy."

Cory:  "Chase I love you and Mommy."

Chase: "Yup, I love me." 

Boogers and Dressing Yourself

This morning Chase and I were snuggled on the couch watching a very fulfilling episode of Spongebob Square Pants when I could see movement out of the corner of my eye.  When I realized what was moving, I was horrified.  The object that was moving was Chase’s finger.  By this time, his petite pointer finger was knuckle deep into his nose.  Disgusted, but not surprised, by this sight, I told him that if he had boogers he needed to get a Kleenex.  But instead of happily accepting my request by getting a Kleenex and wiping his boogers onto the Kleenex, which would have been the socially acceptable thing to do, he decided to stick his finger back up into his nose and insert the booger back to where it originally resided and continued to watch television as if nothing happened.  That’s right, my child was too lazy to get a Kleenex, which was actually within arm’s reach of him, but instead he decided that booger didn't need to come out after all.

On a side note: My child can successfully dress himself, which is super exciting and saves me a lot of time.  On the downside, he put his shirt on backwards today and it is driving me bonkers.  Every time I see the buttons on his upper back I want to poke myself in the eyes with a pencil so I don’t have to see it anymore.  But I am trying to be a good mother and not stifle his accomplishment by having him change it or pointing it out.  (Finger’s crossed that he spills on it and has to take it off.  Am I going to hell?)